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Find Out Which HP Elite You Should Buy

HP’s Elite Pavilion series offers upper end workstation and gaming options the home user. All computers come with at least a quad core processor with 6 GB of RAM making this computer a good option for gamers and power users, or just someone who wants the security of mind that they have a fair bit of processing headroom to make their computer last a few more years before becoming outdated. All of the Elite series desktop computers come standard with discrete graphics making even their most basic option a good choice for the light duty gamer or multimedia person. Upper end options, like the HPE-590t, come with some of the most powerful processors on the market today and boast an impressive selection of different graphics cards allowing you to customize your Elite series into a powerful gaming rig.

Intel

HPE-590t

For the people who just want all out performance the 590t promises to delivers. With all of the options of the 580t the 590t introduces Intel’s powerhouse 6-core processor for maximum processing power. If you need the best this is it. Upgrading to the Extreme Edition won’t yield you much for your high price tag though, because they are mostly intended for overclokers and enthusiasts who want to tweak their settings.

HPE-580t

This model is a great mid-ground option. It introduces a lot of the higher end features of the 590t without all the added cost. With optional SSD, higher end graphics options and upgradable sounds card the 580t is a great option for the high end gamer without the high cost of the 590t. To play DirectX 11 games on medium-full detail the NVIDIA GeForce 460 should fit the bill. Most of the processor options aren’t really going to get you much unless you’re doing processor intensive activities like file compression or video encoding a lot, so I would steer clear of those.

HPE-570t

The 570t offers very few expandability options over the 510t. With the same hard drive and graphics options the only upgrade reason to choose this option is if you wanted to move from the i5 to the i7, but in most respects the higher i5 is actually slightly faster than the lower end i7, although it does come with several nice free upgrades that could make it worth it.

HPE-510t

This entry level quad core desktop offers affordability for someone looking to get into high performance computing. The Intel i5 is a solid option for modest to heavy multitasking. The upgrade to the 2400 series i5 is worth the extra cash but if you want to go to the i7 you’ll get a much better deal out of moving up the 570t. For gaming the 510t has a modest selection of graphics cards available. The entry level graphics card will disappoint in any game within the last couple years and upgrading the nVidia GeForce GT 440 would be recommended as a minimum for playing recent games.

AMD

HPE-500z

This option isn’t bad for someone who needs a six core for a lot of multitasking power, but wouldn’t be the choice for gaming without the higher end graphics card as an option. The 560z doesn’t offer an SSD either which is a bit of a disappointment.

HPE-500z

This is the entry level elite with AMD’s Athlon or Phenom line. I would definitely spring for the Phenom but past that the upgrades aren’t worth the cost. Graphics options for this model are similar to that of the 510t where the GeForece 440 would be recommended for any sort of higher end gaming, although don’t expect much better than medium-low detail with most newer games.

Storage Space

The entire Elite series has a pretty wide range of hard drives available which can be somewhat daunting, but this should offer a brief breakdown of the pros and cons of your options.

RAID 0 – This hard drive arrangement essentially stores half of each file on each drive allowing a significant increase in performance. This can be a great option for storing your games and other non-important data. But if one drive fails you will lose all of the data, so it isn’t a good idea for storage.

RAID 1 – An excellent option for storing things important to you RAID 1 basically stores a copy of each file on each hard drive. This offers a performance improvement effectively cuts storage in half to for the parity of you data. This solution allows you peace of mind with Christmas pictures or tax information. If one drive fails it can be replaced without harm to any data.

SATA 10k RPM – These are high speed low latency conventional hard drives that were really popular in the performance community a few years ago. Things load very quickly because of the low latency but these drives have been mostly outdated by SSD drives in the market. Available for all but the 500z base model this drive might offer a boost in performance if you’re not interested in springing for the SSD drive, but in most cases I would pass this one up.

SSD Drive – This is the current apex of hard drive technology in terms of speed and reliability. They are as much as three time faster than regular hard drives with a small fraction of the latency. Their one shortcoming is their poor longevity for constant writes and re-writes so they are good for static data that needs to be accessed fast (like that operating system). Only available on the 580t and 590t these drives will set you back quite a bit but they are sure to bring a smile to your face when Windows loads in seconds.

All of these options have their merits for certain uses but the key is using them right. In an ideal world you would have a small RAID 1 setup for important information, an SSD drive for the operating system, and a RAID 0 setup for storing regular data. The high speed SATA might be a good option to substitute for the SSD if you plan on doing a lot of writing to your operating system hard drive. In addition it’s a good idea to keep an eye on the RPM of the hard drive you’re picking. Sometimes what looks like a good deal will be a 5400 RPM hard drive which has significantly worse performance, although this isn’t bad for a storage drive.

Memory

Most of the Elite series comes with more RAM options than you could possibly make use of, so it isn’t really a determining factor when selecting a model and all models come standard with 6GB or more which is pretty healthy. If you’re looking to be running a lot of hungry applications like CAD or Inventor on 6GB of RAM you might look at upgrading to 8GB, but most people should be fine.

Bottom Line

The HP Pavilion Elite series offers a wide range of options for power users and gamers alike, but once again HP’s configurations can leave you guessing. The 580t is a good balance of performance and price offering the higher end options like the GeForce 460 and SSD hard drives while not breaking the bank too badly. The AMD offerings are lacking with neither model offering any of the higher end features.